Reflections on Thomism, Kierkegaard, and Orthodoxy: New Testament Christianity

Kierkegaard meshes well with the Lublin School because of their focus on human experience while not falling into relativism.

I often think that fellow Christians see them as just different philosophical traditions or religions (especially Buddhism) and do not realize the worth they have as lens to view the Bible from.

fell out of the routine three years ago, and haven't gone back to it. I've become sceptical of Western Buddhism - that is, Buddhism as practiced and propogated in modern culture. And while I have considerable respect for the teaching and principles I don't feel as though I've been able to successfully integrate into them or with them. I did have some real epiphanies associated with meditation earlier in life, but then it's been like a 'seeds and weeds' scenario in the subsequent years. (I'm in a quandary about it, although I suppose internet forums aren't really a good medium to air such things.)

The third and final part will discuss how these positions are similar to Orthodox Christianity and ultimately conclude with what Catholic and Protestant thought are lacking in and that is an emphasis on mystical theology.

I've become sceptical of Western Buddhism - that is, Buddhism as practiced and propogated in modern culture. And while I have considerable respect for the teaching and principles I don't feel as though I've been able to successfully integrate into them or with them. I did have some real epiphanies associated with meditation earlier in life, but then it's been like a 'seeds and weeds' scenario in the subsequent years.

I also realise that I have been very much influenced by Christian Platonism - I think it's a kind of inborn cultural archetype.

I just wish there were an association or teacher - not an online one! - that I could associate with in that genre.

This sort of universalist self-confidence has been badly damaged though. You still see it in later figures though, Erasmus, Cusa, Boheme, Zwingli, Hegel, etc.

It seems to me like the mystical tradition is generally much weaker in Protestantism.

the promise of mystical union with the divine seems to be a major part of the "Good News," that is neglected in contemporary accounts of the Gospel. Instead, Christianity is reduced to a story about how one avoids punishment and gains reward. Christianity as a path to freedom — freedom over circumstance, desire, and instinct — the sort of unification of the will Plato and Hegel talk about, is particularly neglected.

I find interreligious dialogue between Catholicism and Hinduism to be more apropos and compelling than interreligious dialogue between Catholicism and Buddhism

What follows is that Buddhism and Protestantism do not transplant well

That leads to the dessicated social religion that Christianity has become - 'belief without evidence' as it's usually described here.

In my opinion (and experience), a direct encounter with the mystical is extremely powerful evidence in support of theism.

Have you ever tried LSD?

Have I ever! Don't get me started . . . :starstruck:

"Belief without evidence" is trickier. There's all kinds of evidence for the existence of God and even the divinity of Jesus, but none of it is rock solid. As in so many areas, we're left with beliefs that fall far short of certainty, but are hardly as bereft as "belief without evidence" sounds. In my opinion (and experience), a direct encounter with the mystical is extremely powerful evidence in support of theism.

Have you ever tried LSD?

Science is implicitly understood as the arbiter of what should be taken seriously

The "perennial philosophy" is ...defined as a doctrine which holds [1] that as far as worthwhile knowledge is concerned not all men are equal, but that there is a hierarchy of persons, some of whom, through what they are, can know much more than others; [2] that there is a hierarchy also of the levels of reality, some of which are more "real," because more exalted than others; and [3] that the wise have found a "wisdom" which is true, although it has no "empirical" basis in observations which can be made by everyone and everybody; and that in fact there is a rare and unordinary faculty in some of us by which we can attain direct contact with actual reality--through the Prajñ?p?ramit? of the Buddhists, the logos of Parmenides, the sophia of Aristotle and others, Spinoza's amor dei intellectualis, Hegel's Vernunft, and so on; and [4] that true teaching is based on an authority which legitimizes itself by the exemplary life and charismatic quality of its exponents.

The memories I retain are a sense of rapture at the extraordinary beauty of natural things, some vivid hallucinatory experiences, and a sense of 'why isn't life always like this?'

But the accusation of belief without evidence is often raised on this forum whenever any vaguely religious sentiment is expressed.

Not only that, but the meaning of "evidence" to some here has been so narrowed down by empirical principles, that it could only mean something which appears directly through an individual's sensations.

I don’t know if you’ve read Walker Percy. He makes an interesting distinction between “knowledge” and “news.” Knowledge would be the sort of thing that, broadly, science investigates. News, on the other hand, is information that you can’t deduce or discover for yourself; someone has to tell you. This would include religious revelation, for Percy. And he says that the “credentials of the news-bearer” are important evidence for whether to trust the news.

This may be too black-and-white, but I see what he’s getting at and I think it’s a valuable insight. I wonder what Aquinas would say, getting back to the OP. He made a distinction between natural and revealed religion, didn’t he? And I'm sure Kierkegaard, that champion of subjectivity, would agree.

After Enlightenment: Hamann as Post-Secular Visionary, by John R. Betz, p. 283:Christianity believes, that is to say, not in the doctrines of philosophy, which are nothing
but an alphabetic scribbling of human speculation, and subject to the ?uctuating cycles of
moon and fashion! – not in images and the worship of images! – not in the [i]worship of
animals and heroes![/i] – not in symbolic elements and passwords or in some black ?gures
obscurely painted by the invisible hand on the white wall! – not in [i]Pythagorean-Platonic
numbers!!![/i] – not in the passing shadows of actions and ceremonies that will not remain
and not endure, which are thought to possess a secret power and inexplicable magic! – –
not in any laws, which must be followed even without faith, as the theorist somewhere
says, notwithstanding his Epicurean-Stoic hairsplitting about faith and knowledge! – –
No, Christianity knows of and recognizes no other bonds of faith than the sure [i]prophetic
Word[/i] as recorded in the most ancient documents of the human race and in the [i]holy scrip-
tures of authentic Judaism[/i], without Samaritan segregation and apocryphal Mishnah.

I wonder what Aquinas would say, getting back to the OP. He made a distinction between natural and revealed religion, didn’t he?

As other sciences do not argue in proof of their principles, but argue from their principles to demonstrate other truths in these sciences: so [sacred doctrine] does not argue in proof of its principles, which are the articles of faith, but from them it goes on to prove something else [...] . However, it is to be borne in mind, in regard to the philosophical sciences, that the inferior sciences neither prove their principles nor dispute with those who deny them, but leave this to a higher science; whereas the highest of them, viz. metaphysics, can dispute with one who denies its principles, if only the opponent will make some concession; but if he concede nothing, it can have no dispute with him, though it can answer his objections. Hence Sacred Scripture, since it has no science above itself, can dispute with one who denies its principles only if the opponent admits some at least of the truths obtained through divine revelation; thus we can argue with heretics from texts in Holy Writ, and against those who deny one article of faith, we can argue from another. If our opponent believes nothing of divine revelation, there is no longer any means of proving the articles of faith by reasoning, but only of answering his objections — if he has any — against faith. Since faith rests upon infallible truth, and since the contrary of a truth can never be demonstrated, it is clear that the arguments brought against faith cannot be demonstrations, but are difficulties that can be answered.

A common thread in all of these positions is the idea that knowledge is not merely cerebral and abstract (e.g. the Hebrew, Indian, Platonic, and Christian traditions

It's also interesting to see the distinction Aquinas makes between "faith" and "articles of faith." If I'm reading him rightly, he says that objections to faith itself can be replied to argumentatively -- they are "difficulties that can be answered." Whereas any particular article of faith is precisely that -- a belief held on faith -- and the only way to reply to the doubter here relies on first finding an agreement that faith is even possible, and then pointing out inconsistencies in the doubter's position using other articles of faith. This is quite subtle.

Does it generalize to other overarching world-views? I think it might, though Aquinas seems to be saying that "metaphysics" is in a unique position in this regard.

But wouldn't scientism, for instance, also be able to speak about a similar distinction between "whether scientific knowledge is possible" and "the truths of science"? No one who denied the former could be convinced by the latter. But once scientific knowledge is granted, the specific truths -- the articles of faith, by analogy -- can be argued pro and con, using some truths to demonstrate or refute others.

I think the relevant difference is that scientism holds to scientific truths, and these really are demonstrable from natural reason, whereas faith-propositions (and fundamentally the axioms, the articles of faith) are not. The error of scientism lies in holding that the truths of the hard sciences are the only truths.

On a deeper level, surely the 'corruption of the intellect' due to man's fallen nature is a factor? There's an interesting scholar, Peter Harrison, who's book The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science, 'shows how the approaches to the study of nature that emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were directly informed by theological discussions about the Fall of Man and the extent to which the mind and the senses had been damaged by that primeval event. Scientific methods, he suggests, were originally devised as techniques for ameliorating the cognitive damage wrought by human sin.'

'Scientism' would recognise no such thing, as it's plainly a theological rather than scientific conception.

But it's also the sense in which 'revealed truth' has epistemic as well as simply moral implications. 'Fallen man' does not 'see truly' so to speak, because of that corruption. (In Eastern religions, the term is 'avidya' rather than 'sin' and has a rather different connotation, in that it's associated with the corruption of the intellect rather than the will, which is especially the case in Reformed theology. But there are overlaps.)

Which is to say that Scientism is a great deal more optimistic about the possibility and accessibility of scientific knowledge?

if someone says, "X faith-proposition is false, and here is a proof for why," Aquinas thinks the proof can be addressed and refuted, even though no contrary proof for the faith-proposition is possible.